248 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ments, since they were good and honest citizens and hence no 

 change in the separate governments could ever bring relief. The 

 fault lay not in the men, but in the system of ruling they were 

 called upon to fulfill, that is, in the incompetent and faulty tread- 

 mill of government they were annually called upon to keep in 

 its usual operation. It was then seen that by having an elected 

 power to supervise and regulate the sewage affairs of the whole 

 metropolis, a complete system of drainage could be carried out, 

 and thus only. Such a regulating power is exercised by the 

 metropolitan Board of Public Works, chartered by Act of Parli- 

 ament and composed of members elected from all parts of Lon- 

 don. It is perhaps in place here to explain what is meant by 

 a system of sewers as the same definition will hold good in other 

 matters ; as for a system, of roads, of drainage and irrigation of 

 lands, &c. Perhaps the best illustration would be to refer one 

 to the veins and arteries in the human body, or to the body of 

 a tree, from its trunk through the branches growing smaller and 

 smaller down to the smallest twig that may be on it. It will be 

 at once seen how different any arrangement, in which may be 

 detected the wisdom to contrive, the strength to uphold and the 

 beauty to adorn, like this, is from a miserable patchwork such 

 as cannot but arise where the separate parts of one whole are 

 each left to guide themselves without any unity of action or de- 

 sign, as to their final resultant. The London Board of Public 

 Works had some extraordinary powers conferred upon it, such as 

 the right to levy assessments on real estate benefited by their 

 improvements, and others. Originally constituted merely to 

 plan and execute a system of sewerage for the metropolis, this 

 Board of Public Works soon showed itself so useful and bene- 

 ficial in its actions that other matters were placed in its charge, 

 such as the laying out of new streets, the building of the 

 Thames embankment, — a work of exceeding great magnitude 

 and importance, — and there seems to be no doubt that in all 

 public works London will find it advantageous to employ its 

 Metropolitan Board of Public Works. 



In the city of Chicago there has been a Board of Public 

 Works almost from the very start. It arose there from the 

 union of the water supply and the sewerage commissioners, and 

 has existed since May, 1861. No less than in London, it has 

 proved to be of great benefit to the community ; and it would 



